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It’s Cold in Denver This Year, That’s for Sure.

I seem to wind up in Denver in January every year lately.

Seriously, I have no idea who thinks its a great idea to have a convention/trade show/supplier show in Denver in January of any year – or February either, for that matter – it’s a mystery to me. Last year the temperature was decent; not great, but I live in Phoenix so my idea of hot and cold is probably a bit skewed from most other people.

Why don’t we go to Denver in July or August?

When the rest of country is sweltering – and I’m looking at you, Portland and Seattle, not just New Orleans and Miami – we should be trekking up to Denver and having our trade shows there! It’s something that sane, reasonable people would think made sense, so I guess that’s the primary reason why we’re not going that route.

January is traditionally IndoExpo, and it’s usually followed by NCIA’s Seed to Sale, and I think there is a Women Grow (there was last year) event in the mix as well. It must mean that the cannabis show scheduling is run by a bunch of crazy people who don’t ever check the weather.

IndoExpo was this past weekend, what an amazing turnout for the event this time.

Honestly, you don’t expect to see the fire marshal show up and shut down the entrance to a trade show; that’s just not the normal way of it. But sure enough, that’s what happened on Saturday at IndoExpo, I kid you not.

I took the early flight up from PHX and was on the fence about whether or not to spend the night or just to head back down at the end of the day. I had flights for both scheduled, and I figured I would just wait until the afternoon of the show to make the call.

I like IndoExpo, it’s a fun show and one of the more fun events in both Denver and Portland. It’s been productive for us over the past couple of years, and we’ve met some interesting folks that we’ve gone on to do business with or befriended.

Seeds seemed to be the big deal this time around – there were lines to buy seeds from a couple of places that were at least a half hour long and didn’t stop until the inventory was gone. How crazy is that?

I was a little disappointed in the overall show experience – Saturday is traditionally a B2B day, which is good for us, but this time there were a ton of consumers in the mix on all access passes; they usually attend on Sunday at these shows, and it lends itself to getting a lot of business done on Saturday and then taking it easy on Sunday, unless you have consumer products.

Next stop, next week, NCIA Seed to Sale show.

I bailed on the weekend, it was just too cold in Denver for me, so I hustled my behind back to warmer climes in the early evening. I’m headed back to the Mile High city early next week, and sure enough the weather forecast isn’t looking any warmer, and I’m going to be doing an overnight this time.

NCIA seems to be an organization in crisis at the moment, which is alarming – we are members, and find that the Quarterly Caucus meetings are fantastic. We also like the trade shows they produce – Oakland was great for us last year, to put it mildly.

Time to show support for the state legal cannabis industry.

I don’t think I can stress this enough – if you are in the business, make it your business to show up, support the industry, and be heard. With all the uncertainty in the air (read: Sessions is crazy and we all know it), now is not the time to sit on the sidelines and do nothing or say nothing.

We value our customers in the industry and are doing what we can to continue to provide services on the financial side. Our mobile ad platform is already compliant with the new Canadian regulations that are likely to be imposed with adult use legalization. And we’re now working one on one with business owners who want to get their business into shape and become attractive to banks, credit unions or other ‘official’ types.

I’ll have a big report after Seed to Sale, I’m planning to do a contrast and compare between the two shows, and give you the rundown on which one is better for what purpose.